One difficulty that inhibits the growth of book-publishing companies is that they think of themselves as book-publishing companies, selling books through bookstores (bricks and clicks) and to perhaps to libraries. However, the advent of Amazon.com, ebooks, social media and more demanding customer expectations challenges that philosophy.

If you think this is another article pushing you to finally open up a social media account to promote your book- it is. I will go even further to say that you cannot publish your book without social media.

I know many heavy readers and scholarly type individuals who do not have time for social media. They cite the time wasting factor that everyone is turned into a voyeur, and finally that it doesn’t lead to sales anyway- so what’s the big deal. The truth is that establishing your presence on social media (and I’m including a personal website in my definition) is a critical step in publishing, marketing and selling your book. For all of the reasons listed above to not set it up and more!

Read on to find out what your readers want, and why you have to use social media to deliver.

1. Release it in eBook: This should be your first – and easiest – step. If a traditional house published your book, check if they have the rights to your digital content. Many old contracts don’t have this provision so be sure and check. What next? Most savvy eBook folks can work with a PDF of the book, and course, a Word doc works well, too. Just convert it to a digital format and you’re done! It’s pretty easy. If you do this, consider adding some new reviews as well.

Our past experiences skew the ways in which we make judgments and decisions. However, our experiences are the result of how we interpreted an event or circumstance. Further complicating the decision process is that our analysis is distorted by our biases and the result may or may not have had anything to do with the reality of the situation. Here are the Top Ten Ways to Learn From Mistakes.

There are many things that publishers wish authors knew before they signed their contract or even submitted their books. I know that I have had a few head-scratching interactions with potential authors, from being told "I don't read books" to "I didn't know I could talk about my book". Here are 7 Things Publishers Wished Authors Knew, and sometimes are a little perturbed at having to explain:

I was watching Mike and Molly reruns the other day and I bumped into a real life scenario that I could relate to in the episode, “Buy the Book.” It was a refreshing contrast to zombies, murder, and scientific thrillers. Molly gets the first copy of her published book and is thrilled as a new mother holding her newborn for the very first time. Creating something from scratch and watching it take its first breath puts us as close as we are ever going to get to our own creator. That’s why it has such an intense effect on us.

Once that moment of euphoria is over, reality sets in and we remember that we must sell books because you did receive a sizeable advance from the publisher in expectation of you doing so. Even though Molly is thrilled to see her book in print, now comes the difficult task of trying to market it. If you are a new author and want to get a practical picture of what happens when you start to market your book, I would recommend you look at this episode.

What is an elevator pitch and why do you need one? An elevator pitch is a short one- to two-sentence description about the book. It's the briefest of the briefest descriptions you can develop. The reason elevator pitches are important is that we have an ever- shrinking attention span, so you need to capture someone's attention in a very short, succinct pitch.

How do you begin crafting an elevator pitch? The first step is to look at the core of your book. What is your book about, really? Looking at the core of your book will help you determine the primary message. The next step is to look at the real benefits to the reader. Not what you think the reader wants to know but what they actually need: What's in it for the reader?

Okay readers, listen up. This one is for you. Being an author isn’t easy – in fact it’s a pretty tough job. It’s not easy being an author in a world where everyone can get published. We write our books for you and, in return, we’d love a little help now and again.

Most of my articles focus on advising authors on marketing and social media. I am sure authors read these pieces and feel like they need a nap. Yes, there’s a lot to be done, but you shouldn’t go it alone. Your readers can be your best ally to help you market to other readers.

Often readers do want to help, but aren’t really sure what to do. There’s a bit of a mystique around authors. Many readers think, “Well, the book has been published, they probably don’t need my help.” But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Authors (especially those who are starting out) do need our help.

As publishers, we make decisions every day that impact the future of our business. And as small-businesspeople we tend to rely on our experience and gut feelings rather than upon external objective data. But by relying too much on intuition we reinforce the assumed precision of our decision, and possibly inhibit innovative thinking.

Trusting your gut when making marketing decisions is not bad in itself. The problem is that if you have not tested your intuition by going against it periodically, how do you know if it is helping you make the right decisions? You may only be reinforcing your closely held preferences.

There are three things you can do to check the accuracy of your automatic decision-making process. First, have a long-term perspective. Second strategically choose objectives, and third, consider multiple options for reaching your goals.

Getting international sales is always an important part of an author’s campaign but selling overseas can be tricky. The good news is: Amazon is everywhere. The bad news is that most of these author/book pages overseas are blank slates and populating them means either finding reviewers in these countries or finding reviewers who have accounts internationally. For the most part, I’ve only seen Amazon top reviewers have this kind of access. Though technically anyone can review internationally, most don’t.